Meersman wins Stage 3, big names on sidelines

Gianni Meersman
Originally uploaded by Frank Steele.

A high-quality group decimated the field at the Tour de Georgia today, as a group of 13 riders stretched their lead out to 29 minutes on the day. As what looks likely to be the deciding break of the race rode away, the peloton was unable, or unwilling, to close down the gap.

In the break were two riders each from Discovery Channel (Gianni Meersman and Janez Brajkovic), Saunier Duval (David Canada and Rubens Bertogliati), Quick Step (Ivan Santaromita and Kevin Seeldrayers) and Health Net (Tim Johnson and Jeff Louder); with representatives from CSC (Christian Vande Velde), BMC (Scott Nydam), Colavita (Tyler Wren), Navigators (Ciaran Power), and Team Slipstream (Lucas Euser).

In the day's last climb, over Burkhalter Gap, Bertogliati and Seeldrayers escaped the breakaway, but were quickly recaptured. As the leaders neared Chattanooga's downtown, Louder got a healthy gap that looked safe, but Nydam dragged the group back into contact. Vande Velde went on the capture, but was quickly caught. In the last kilometer, Louder attacked again, this time from the back of the group up the right gutter, but Brajkovic countered, and it turned into a free-for-all.

On top of the tussle was the race's youngest participant, Belgium's Gianni Meersman of Discovery Channel, ahead of David Canada of Saunier Duval-Prodir and Disco teammate Janez Brajkovic.

Canada takes over the race leadership, and it looks to me like the overall winner is very likely to come from this break. My expectation is Janez Brajkovic, but Vande Velde or Bertogliati could make things interesting.

Tinkoff, Priority Health, Jittery Joe's, and Toyota-United missed the break that counted. Unable to recruit help from the strong teams with riders in the break, they now all look unlikely to compete in the overall classification.

Even among the teams that made the break, most will now be backing an unexpected leader. Among the riders likely out of the overall competition are pre-race favorite Tom Danielson, Levi Leipheimer, Gilberto Simoni, David Millar, David Zabriskie, and Tyler Hamilton. There's still a lot of climbing in this race, but 29 minutes is an enormous deficit.

Comments

[David Van Noord]

I believe that the BMC rider is SCOTT Nydam, not sven.

[Frank]

You're right, of course. Updated.